City of Rome Founded - Great Future Predicted!

According to the Official History of the Roman Republic, today in 753 BC Romulus founded the City of Rome


From the History Teachers at History for Music Lovers





Topic: Rome

A New Constitution

From Political Punch at ABC News.

Picked up on open mikes, a conversation between Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and American President Barrack Obama


President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.

President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…

President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.

President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.

Let's see the nicest thing to said is that the President promised he would give up without cost a key negotiation item.

A more common interpretation is that his he will not announce his real post election agenda during the election, it may cost him to many votes. Who knows.


/SatireMode=On

What makes that interesting is this just floated into my computer from an alternate universe.

-----------------------------------------

Draft Executive Order to be issued the day after election (win or lose) by the President of the United States on his authority deriving from being Barrack H Obama.


The Constitution of the US is amended as follows:

Preamble

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

We, Barrack H Obama, in Order to form a more perfect Commune, establish Fairness, insure domestic Tolerance, provide the Nomenklatura's Defense, promote the Welfare system, and secure the Benifits of Multiculturism to ourselves and our (unaborted) Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Article 1 Section 8

1: The Congress shall have Power [Delete to end and replace with] to legislate the wishes of Barrack H Obama
Section 9
2: The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.
2. No privilege of Habeas Corpus shall be granted.
3: No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
3. Bills of Attainder and ex post facto laws may passed.
7: No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.Except at the direction of President Obama, Statements and account of the receipts need not be published.

Article II Section 1

1: The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. Barrack H Obama. He shall hold his Office ,during the Term of four Years, for life


Article III Section 3
1: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. Lesse Majesty against Barack H Obama

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, except for secularism, or permitting the free exercise thereof; or allowing the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,
shall not be infringed.
shall not be tollerated

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Privare property is an oxomoron thus it shall always be subject to searches and seizures for any reason or no reason, with or without cause.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
A person may be put in jeopardy as often as necessary to obtain a conviction, shall not have right to due process of law.


Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall be tried at a time and place convenient to the prosecution,   need not be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; be confronted with the witnesses against him; have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, or have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The powers that Barrack H Obama does not delegate to the States or the People are retained by Barrack H Obama.

Admendment XIII Section 1

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

Amendment XIV Section 1

1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside
Barrack H Obama is a Natural born Citizen of the United States and the State in which he resides

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

To promote the policies of Barrak H Obamma a state may abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;any state may deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; and  deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

/SatireMode=Off

Genocide in Cambodia?

Douglas Levine tells us of his recent visit to Cambodia at at NRO Online.


I went to Cambodia primarily to see the ancient temples of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. They were built in the 12th century, when Angkor was the capital of the Khmer empire and the largest city in the world, with a population of one million. I had first read about Angkor Wat in a Buddhist-art class in 1972. By then, Angkor Wat was off limits to foreign visitors, shrouded in mystery and veiled by war. By some miracle, it and the other temples in the region were untouched by the long years of war. Several hundred years of neglect in the jungle have taken a toll, however, and in recent years many foreign universities and governments have sent experts and aid to help in the restoration of these spectacular wonders of the ancient world.

snip

The other reason to visit Cambodia was to see the killing fields. During their five years in power, the Khmer Rouge killed somewhere between 1 and 2 million people, out of a population that had stood around 10 million. This didn’t come to light until after the Vietnamese army invaded Cambodia and drove the Khmer Rouge out of Phnom Penh. Pictures of piles of bodies and bones, reminiscent of Auschwitz, began to appear in the world press. Since then, many details have emerged about the Khmer Rouge’s killing spree. Everyone refers to this as the Cambodian genocide.

snip

But calling these murders “genocide” troubles me.

Cambodia is now and was then one of the most ethnically unitary countries in the world: 95 percent of all Cambodians are ethnically Khmer; the remaining 5 percent include Chinese, Vietnamese, Laotians, Hmong, Cham, and others. And 95 percent of all Cambodians, of whatever ethnicity, are Buddhist. Most of the killings were Khmer on Khmer, although the Khmer Rouge did also target Cambodia’s very small Cham Muslim minority.

The term “genocide” historically refers to the mass extermination of a race or ethnicity, as with the Turks and the Armenians, or the Germans and the Jews, or the Serbs and the Bosnians. It doesn’t seem to fit what happened in Cambodia, except for the scale of the slaughter.


He has a point. The UN convention defines Genocide as: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such

Note that economic and political groups are not listed. They were removed from earlier drafts because the communist Soviet Union had murdered millions in political and economic groups in the previous 20 years and they were not going to put themselves in trouble or limit future policy options.

The Communist Khmer Rouge was only doing what had been specifically excluded from the definition.

Levine continues
Why then do Cambodians and the world call the mass murders by the Khmer Rouge “genocide”? I can think of several possible reasons.

snip

However, I suspect that the most important reason for the usage worldwide is that many people in the international media, international agencies, and international NGOs (not to mention academia) are reluctant to face up to the crimes committed by Communism in the name of equality. To do so might call into question the weight attached by them to equality as the most important social value and undermine the multicultural faith that evil is predominantly the product of inequality, racism, ethnic hatred, or religious fanaticism. That cannot be permitted, so such crimes must be either ignored or mislabeled. And, of course, the remaining Communist regimes in the world are only too happy to cooperate in characterizing the killing fields as the products of irrational paranoia on the part of Pol Pot and his gang rather than the perfectly rational result of the quest for perfect equality.

The Khmer Rouge leadership has been charged and tried for Genocide. It seems the Khmer Rouge left documents where they mentioned by name several sub-groups that are protected by the convention, totaling a few percent of those killed. Gregory H. Stanton of Genocide Watch seems very excited at finding a technicality to charge the Khmer Rouge with Genocide. This however only obscures the source of the tragedy. It was not a crime of racial or ethnic hatred, but a calculated policy to implement a political program.

To prevent recurrences we need to understand the actual sources and recognize that nice sounding political programs, not racial or ethnic hatred, that can only be implanted with gross human rights violations, are the problem. It is always necessary to look beyond the idealistic explanation; and ask can this actully promote, and be implemented with, respect to human dignity and human rights.


Related Posts

Death by Government
Never Again and Again and Again
Rwanda and Darfur Compared

More information.

UN Convention on Genocide
What is Genocide

R J Rummel's Power Kills site
Genocide Watch

My Genocide posts

Just Asking?

When a nation re-awakes, its finest sons are prepared to give their lives for its liberation. When Empires are threatened with collapse, they are prepared to sacrifice their non-commissioned officers.
Menachem Begin, The Revolt 1951. Quoted from Bernard B Fall, Hell In A Very Small Place; The Siege of Dien Bien Phu, 1967

Today it is often commented that virtually none of the students of Ivory League schools serve in the volunteer military. I wonder if this means that our future leaders from these schools don't believe in creating a country most people would find worth living in?

Book Review: Dien Bien Phu: Hell in a Very Small Place

DIEN BIEN PHU, about 1700, 13 March 1954. The the 141st and 219th Regiments of the 312th Viet Minh Division attack the 3d Battalion, 13th Foreign Legion Demi-Brigade at isolated strong point Beatrice. By 0200 it is over. Only a hundred of the 500 legionaries escape, the Viet Minh lose 600 dead and two to three times that wounded. A sign of events to come.

Hell In A Very Small Place The Siege of Dien Bien Phu
Author:  Barnard B Fall
Original edition publishes by Harper and Row, 1967
This Edition by Da Capo Press.

"Hell In a Very Small Place is the classic telling of the siege of Dien Bien Phu and will probably remain the definitive telling. Bernard Fall follows the siege with a "Date Line: Dien Bien Phu" coverage, but also describes the larger strategic and political questions, ties them together, in smooth narrative that very few authors successfully accomplish.



The Viet Minh held the northern stretch of Viet Nam since 1950. Stalemated for years, the French did not have the strength to drive them back to the Chinese border, and the Viet Minh could only slowly increase their strength to take the Red River valley. (Hanoi and Haiphong).

The French had recently granted independence to Laos.  General Navarre, the French Theater commander ordered a "blocking position" at Dien Bien Phu on Route 41 to keep the Viet Minh from moving into Laos. General Cogney, the commander of the Northern comand decided the way to implement that directive was to use Dien Bien Phu as a "mooring point" to launch attacks  against Viet Minh activities in the area. It was never the plan, as often assumed, to set up a strong point to draw the Viet Minh into a trap. General Giap, the Viet Minh commander saw this as an opportunity to inflict a major defeat on the French. His units were moving even before the French occupied Dien Bien Phu.

The French parachuted and captured Dien Bien Phu on November 20 1953. By January the "blocking position" mission was shown to be unrealistic, a full Viet Minh division easily bypassed it and went into Laos. The "mooring point" mission was shut down by increasing Viet Minh pressure.  It was obvious by mid-January that if the French stayed there they would be defending against a major siege. Since the plan had been for a "mooring point" the base had not been constructed to withstand a siege and by January it was physically impossible to import enough material to properly fortify it. The French could have evacuated at that point but do not appear to have considered the possibility. At some point the operation slipped from a side show to the central action defining success or failure for the French in Indochina.

The siege started on March 13. After a month and half of intense combat it was obvious Dien Bien Phu would soon fall. The government in Paris issued orders that it would not surrender, the Americans surrendered at Corregidor, the British at Singapore and the Germans at Stalingrad but the French would not surrender at Dien Bien Phu.   On May 7 the garrison commander, to save his wounded, announced that a unilateral cease fire would take place at 1730, the French destroyed their weapons, the Viet Minh walked in without opposition. There was no formal surrender or white flags.

The heart of the book is the story of an inadequately staffed garrison, in incomplete fortifications, with constant shortages of food, ammunition, medical supplies, and most everything, fighting desparate odds with bravery and skill. Almost every day these worn out soldiers would fight off a an attack then get up and counter attack.  Of the 15,000 in the garrison only 3000 returned to French authority.  Fall treats the soldiers of the Vietminh with equal respect and sympathy.

Some interesting items.

While the larger war was a guerrilla war in the tradition of Mao Tse Tung, in the Viet Minh dominated areas where the battle took place the only guerilla activity was French sympathizing tribes fighting the Viet Minh. The battle was a conventional war siege resembling the trench warfare of WWI or the formal sieges of the 17th and 18th centuries. The massive influx of Viet Minh regulars destroyed the French guerilla forces in this area.

To defend the airfield, key to the position, the French should have defended an area twice as large, with a correspondingly larger garrison, to large to be supplied by the means available. Parachuting supplies kept the the garrison going at a subsistence level. New units were parachuted in to replace losses. 

How to build defenses to withstand modern artillery was published in everyones manuals since WWI. The French only tried to ship in one tenth of the needed engineering materials, the rest of the available cargo capacity was required  for food, ammunition and other essentials; even if all the flights were dedicated to engineering materials there still should not have been enough to complete proper fortifications.

The French force was a multinational and multicultural; French mainland, Foreign Legion, Moroccans, Algerians, other Africans and Vietnamese. The French mainland units were 25 to 50 % Vietnamese. Vietnamese were the largest single group. The Foreign Legion at that time was mainly, eastern European Spanish German and French. This crated a number of problems, rations had to be parachuted in there were several different menus then distibuted to the correct units.. Any thing that looked like favoritism or not recognizing unit characteristics could have ripped moral to pieces.

The Viet Minh were taking a considerable risk. They committed over half of their regular force. They barely had the capacity to supply these five divisions. Their rations were no more generous than the garrisons. Casualties were heavy, but they had virtually no medical infrastructure beyond unit the level. Veteran units at the beginning of the battle filled with barely trained conscripts for the last phases. Morale was often poor. At the end of March Giap realized that the casualties from direct assults were so heavy they would destroy his army. He called a halt to direct assaults and adopted the 18th century tactic of sapping and mining (dig trenches successively closer to the fort.) If things went wrong their war effort would be put back years if not lost. Fortunately for the Viet Minh the French never fully realized the opportunity and did not have ability to take advantage of it.


This books reputation as a classic in it's genre is well deserved.   A superb presentation of a story that will be told for centuries, long after the issues of the war are forgotten.   Fall is both fair and critical at the same time of people and decisions and makes a balanced analysis's of plans and events. There are excellent maps, and appendixes. It is clearly written, and leaves the reader with a good understanding of what happened and why. Readers without much interest or background in the subject might find the very detailed approach challenging. Other than that it is an excellent book and is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.

Related:
Maothought or Who is Winning
TET 1968: A personal Narrative

Technology Changes, Humans Don't

From Victor David Hansen

But we should remember what technology is — a delivery system, a pump — not our essence, not water itself. Human nature remains constant and predictable while the ever-changing rate of technological growth obscures this insight. That I can talk to Argentina with a four-second dial, or find out how to treat leprosy on the Internet in ten seconds, or be constantly directed by a soothing female voice how to navigate through downtown L.A. does not thereby mean I have any more to say to an Argentinian than my great-great-grandmother might have, or that thereby I would be necessarily more or less willing to drop historic prejudices against lepers, or that I would have any more business in L.A. than did my grandfather with his nine-farmer open party-line, strung along the road with vineyard wire on eucalyptus poles. I could, of course, but that fact would hinge on considerations that might outweigh the speed or ease of my knowledge and decision-making.


I bring all this up because in the last two weeks I heard and read some strange things about how technological changes have transformed our very politics and way of life. . . .
true to an extent — but not to the extent that we think

snip

Cell-phoning simply has accelerated what was — or was not already — there. I like finding the GPS directions to a Starbucks in a strange city, and appreciate those engineers who gave us such options. But coffee is coffee, existence is existence, and if I don’t use my saved time wisely, it is not necessarily any better invested than in stopping and asking directions.

The point is not to denigrate high-tech, but to remind us that it a tool that is as good or bad — to paraphrase Shane — as the person using it. But with one great caveat, today’s glitzy technology is so impressive, so captivating to the human brain that it has the ability to confuse us about master and slave, cause and effect, the pump and water in a way the abacus or the telegraph did not.


Not that I do not like technology, it's it's made the world a better pace, it's fun and it has paid my bills for years. But it is a tool, people are still people. I have the cartoon at top on my desk at work to remind me to be nice to my customers, they may have trouble finding the "any" key, but what they do is far more important than keeping the computers running.

Read the whole article.



The cartoon is from gapingvoid "Cartoons drawn on the back of business cards."

Roe v Wade Is Absurd

From Courthouse News:

Girl, 14, Sues Family to Stop Abortion
By DAVID LEE

(CN) - A state court in Corpus Christi, Texas, extended an order preventing a 14-year-old girl's family from forcing her to get an abortion.

The girl filed a temporary restraining order against her family on Dec. 21 after they scheduled an appointment for her to get an abortion, according to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times

She is represented by attorneys with the Texas Center for Defense of Life, an Austin-based nonprofit. Stephen Casey, chief counsel for the group, told the Caller Times that "she has the people she's relied on her whole life pushing her in the direction she doesn't want to go."


Casey said the teen has the right to make the decision herself, no matter what her age.


Click here for the full article.
HT: How Far Have We Come by Simcha Fisher at National Catholic Register.

  ------------------------------------------------

From First Things

This summer, President Obama proclaimed again that we “need fathers to recognize that responsibility doesn’t end at conception.” In a sense, of course, he is absolutely right. But the problem is that, in another sense, he is completely wrong: Male responsibility really does end at conception. Men these days can choose only sex, not fatherhood; mothers alone determine whether children shall be allowed to exist. Legalized abortion was supposed to grant enormous freedom to women, but it has had the perverse result of freeing men and trapping women.

The likelihood of this cultural development was foreseen by the radical feminist Catherine MacKinnon, one of the critical voices responding to Roe v. Wade’s extension of the right of privacy to cover abortion. In an essay called “Privacy vs. Equality,” MacKinnon argued that “abortion’s proponents and opponents share a tacit assumption that women do significantly control sex. Feminist investigations suggest otherwise. Sexual intercourse . . . cannot simply be presumed coequally determined.” Indeed, she added, “men control sexuality,” and “ Roe does not contradict this.”

snip

Furthermore, if MacKinnon is right, wherever women have not yet overcome gender inequality, involuntary sex and involuntary abortion will tend to be more frequent, precisely as a result of abortion’s availability. To the degree that a culture is built on machismo, for example, the legalization of abortion will make women relatively worse off by giving men another tool to manipulate women as sex objects. Again, to the degree that an economy employs mainly men, leaving women dependent on economic handouts, women will be much less likely to resist male pressures to make use of abortion. Wherever men make women’s decisions for them, the option of abortion will be a man’s choice, regardless of how the law may label it.


Her Choice Her Problem August/September 2009

More from First things

  ------------------------------


HT: The American Catholic


Click here for Pregnancy Resources

I Have A Dream

I HAVE A DREAM
By Dr. Martin L. King Jr.
[Delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963]

When we lose his dream we are lost!





I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

Read the entire speech

2021: The New Europe - a Wholly German Empire

Niall Ferguson in the Wall Street Journal writing from the vantage point of 2021 tells the story of how the European Union became the United States of Europe. I have no idea if this is how things will turn out, but it is humarous look at the current crisis with good bits information and commentary thrown in.

The euro is still circulating, though banknotes are now seldom seen. (Indeed, the ease of electronic payments now makes some people wonder why creating a single European currency ever seemed worth the effort.) But Brussels has been abandoned as Europe's political headquarters. Vienna has been a great success.

snip

David Cameron—now beginning his fourth term as British prime minister—thanks his lucky stars that, reluctantly yielding to pressure from the Euroskeptics in his own party, he decided to risk a referendum on EU membership. His Liberal Democrat coalition partners committed political suicide by joining Labour's disastrous "Yeah to Europe" campaign.

Egged on by the pugnacious London tabloids, the public voted to leave by a margin of 59% to 41%, and then handed the Tories an absolute majority in the House of Commons. Freed from the red tape of Brussels, England is now the favored destination of Chinese foreign direct investment in Europe.

Snip

And in 2013, in a historical twist only a few die-hard Ulster Unionists had dreamt possible, the Republic of Ireland's voters opted to exchange the austerity of the U.S.E. for the prosperity of the U.K. Postsectarian Irishmen celebrated their citizenship in a Reunited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland with the slogan: "Better Brits Than Brussels."


snip

. . . European President Karl von Habsburg . . . still known to close associates by his royal title of Archduke Karl of Austria . . .



For the best laugh of the day read the whole article. Is this close to what will happen? Who knows?

Hat tip to David of Duff and Nonsense.

Campfire and Battlefield

It is poor business measuring the mouldered ramparts and counting the silent guns, marking the deserted battlefields and decorating the grassy graves, unless we can learn from it some nobler lesson than to destroy. Men write of this, as of other wars, as if the only thing necessary to be impressed upon the rising generation were the virtue of physical courage and contempt of death. It seems to me that is the last thing we need to teach; for since the days of John Smith in Virginia and the men of the Mayflower in Massachusetts, no generation of Americans has shown any lack of it. From Louisburg to Petersburg-a hundred and twenty years, the full span of four generations-they have stood to their guns and been shot down in greater comparative numbers than any other race on earth. In the war of secession there was not a State, not a county, probably not a town, between the great lakes and the gulf, that was not represented on fields where all that men could do with powder and steel was done and valor exhibited at its highest pitch…There is not the slightest necessity for lauding American bravery or impressing it upon American youth. But there is the gravest necessity for teaching them respect for law, and reverence for human life, and regard for the rights of their fellow country-men, and all that is significant in the history of our country…These are simple lessons, yet they are not taught in a day, and some who we call educated go through life without mastering them at all.
Emphasis is mine.


Rossiter Johnson, Campfire and Battlefield, 1884

Related: Bivouac of the Dead The poem on the illistration.


HT: Donald E McClarey at Almost Chosen People

Plessy v Ferguson and a Color Blind Constitution?

In 1896 in the case Plessy v Ferguson the Supreme Court held that racial segregation was constitutional if the conditions were “separate but equal.” Justice John Marshall Harlan dissented with the ringing declaration that the “constitution is color blind[!]” This decision was later overturned in Brown v Board of Education of Topeka in 1954. A few years later when I was in elementary school the Brown decision was celebrated in Social Studies class as an endorsement of Justice Harlan’s dissent. However, by the time to I got to college I realized there was a huge debate, both sides totally rejecting the Plessy decision, as to whether the constitution was in fact or should be color blind. And apparently Brown v Board of Education of Topeka did not follow the logic of Justice Harlan’s dissent.

I thought that I might take a look at the decision and see what it actually said. Any real lawyers are free to correct my errors.


Issue

Was The statute of Louisiana, acts of 1890, c. 111, requiring railway companies carrying passengers in their coaches in that State, to provide equal, but separate, accommodations for the white and colored races, . . (Syllabus) a violation of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

Homer Plessy (I/8 colored and 7/8 white), in an intentional test of the law, boarded a white compartment, informed the conductor he was colored, refused instructions to move to the other car, was removed from the train and arrested. He was convicted in a trial presided over by John Howard Fergusen, appealed to the Louisiana Supreme Court which ruled against him and then appealed to the Supreme court that the law violated his rights under the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, arguing these admendments made the Constitution color blind.

I extracted key sections of the decision and dissent, key questions to watch are:

1. Is the the issue Federal or State Jurisdiction?
2. Does the 13th amendment merely prohibit slavery or also enforcing what were badges of slavery?
3. Does the 14th amendment allow a government act to know the race of persons effected?
4. What did the Court actually rule?


Justice Brown for the Court

That it [the Louisiana law] does not conflict with the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, is too clear for argument. . . .. This amendment was said in the Slaughterhouse Cases, 16 Wall. 36, to have been intended primarily to abolish slavery

snip

A statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races -- a distinction which is founded in the color of the two races and which must always exist so long as white men are distinguished from the other race by color -- has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races, or reestablish a state of involuntary servitude. Indeed, we do not understand that the Thirteenth Amendment is strenuously relied upon by the plaintiff in error in this connection.

snip

The object of the [14th] amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but, in the nature of things, it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either. Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other, and have been generally, if not universally, recognized as within the competency of the state legislatures in the exercise of their police power.

In the Civil Rights Case, 109 U.S. 3, it was held that an act of Congress entitling all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of inns, public conveyances, on land or water, theatres and other places of public amusement, and made applicable to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude, was unconstitutional and void upon the ground that the Fourteenth Amendment was prohibitory upon the States only, and the legislation authorized to be adopted by Congress for enforcing it was not direct legislation on matters respecting which the States were prohibited from making or enforcing certain laws, or doing certain acts, but was corrective legislation such as might be necessary or proper for counteracting and redressing the effect of such laws or acts. In delivering the opinion of the court


The decision provides a long discussion expressing the opinion that this is in the police powers of the state and the Federal government most recognize any reasonable state legislation.


. . .we think the enforced separation of the races, as applied to the internal commerce of the State, neither abridges the privileges or immunities of the colored man, deprives him of his property without due process of law, nor denies him the equal protection of the laws within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment,. . .

We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.

snip

It is claimed by the plaintiff in error that, in any mixed community, the reputation of belonging to the dominant race, in this instance the white race, is property in the same sense that a right of action or of inheritance is property. Conceding this to be so for the purposes of this case, we are unable to see how this statute deprives him of, or in any way affects his right to, such property. If he be a white man and assigned to a colored coach, he may have his action for damages against the company for being deprived of his so-called property. Upon the other hand, if he be a colored man and be so assigned, he has been deprived of no property, since he is not lawfully entitled to the reputation of being a white man.



Justice Harlan in Dissent

While there may be in Louisiana persons of different races who are not citizens of the United States, the words in the act "white and colored races" necessarily include all citizens of the United States of both races residing in that State. So that we have before us a state enactment that compels, under penalties, the separation of the two races in railroad passenger coaches, and makes it a crime for a citizen of either race to enter a coach that has been assigned to citizens of the other race.

Thus, the State regulates the use of a public highway by citizens of the United States solely upon the basis of race.

However apparent the injustice of such legislation may be, we have only to consider whether it is consistent with the Constitution of the United States.

That a railroad is a public highway, and that the corporation which owns or operates it is in the exercise of public functions, is not, at this day, to be disputed. Mr. Justice Nelson, speaking for this court in New Jersey Steam Navigation Co. v. Merchants' Bank, 6 How. 344, 382, said that a common carrier was in the exercise

of a sort of public office, and has public duties to perform, from which he should not be permitted to exonerate himself without the assent of the parties concerned.

snip

In respect of civil rights common to all citizens, the Constitution of the United States does not, I think, permit any public authority to know the race of those entitled to be protected in the enjoyment of such rights. Every true man has pride of race, and, under appropriate circumstances, when the rights of others, his equals before the law, are not to be affected, it is his privilege to express such pride and to take such action based upon it as to him seems proper. But I deny that any legislative body or judicial tribunal may have regard to the [p555] race of citizens when the civil rights of those citizens are involved. Indeed, such legislation as that here in question is inconsistent not only with that equality of rights which pertains to citizenship, National and State, but with the personal liberty enjoyed by everyone within the United States.

The Thirteenth Amendment does not permit the withholding or the deprivation of any right necessarily inhering in freedom. It not only struck down the institution of slavery as previously existing in the United States, but it prevents the imposition of any burdens or disabilities that constitute badges of slavery or servitude. It decreed universal civil freedom in this country. This court has so adjudged. But that amendment having been found inadequate to the protection of the rights of those who had been in slavery, it was followed by the Fourteenth Amendment, which added greatly to the dignity and glory of American citizenship and to the security of personal liberty . . .

snip

These two amendments, if enforced according to their true intent and meaning, will protect all the civil rights that pertain to freedom and citizenship. Finally, and to the end that no citizen should be denied, on account of his race, the privilege of participating in the political control of his country,

snip

These notable additions to the fundamental law were welcomed by the friends of liberty throughout the world. They removed the race line from our governmental systems. They had, as this court has said, a common purpose, namely to secure to a race recently emancipated, a race that through [p556] many generations have been held in slavery, all the civil rights that the superior race enjoy.

They declared, in legal effect, this court has further said, that the law in the States shall be the same for the black as for the white; that all persons, whether colored or white, shall stand equal before the laws of the States, and, in regard to the colored race, for whose protection the amendment was primarily designed, that no discrimination shall be made against them by law because of their color.
We also said:

The words of the amendment, it is true, are prohibitory, but they contain a necessary implication of a positive immunity, or right, most valuable to the colored race -- the right to exemption from unfriendly legislation against them distinctively as colored -- exemption from legal discriminations, implying inferiority in civil society, Lessening the security of their enjoyment of the rights which others enjoy, and discriminations which are steps towards reducing them to the condition of a subject race.

snip

It as said in argument that the statute of Louisiana does [p557] not discriminate against either race, but prescribes a rule applicable alike to white and colored citizens. But this argument does not meet the difficulty. Everyone knows that the statute in question had its origin in the purpose not so much to exclude white persons from railroad cars occupied by blacks as to exclude colored people from coaches occupied by or assigned to white persons. Railroad corporations of Louisiana did not make discrimination among whites in the matter of accommodation for travelers. The thing to accomplish was, under the guise of giving equal accommodation for whites and blacks, to compel the latter to keep to themselves while traveling in railroad passenger coaches. No one would be so wanting in candor a to assert the contrary. The fundamental objection, therefore, to the statute is that it interferes with the personal freedom of citizens. "Personal liberty," . .

snip

It is one thing for railroad carriers to furnish, or to be required by law to furnish, equal accommodations for all whom they are under a legal duty to carry. It is quite another thing for government to forbid citizens of the white and black races from traveling in the same public conveyance, and to punish officers of railroad companies for permitting persons of the two races to occupy the same passenger coach.

snip

The white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country. And so it is in prestige, in achievements, in education, in wealth and in power. So, I doubt not, it will continue to be for all time if it remains true to its great heritage and holds fast to the principles of constitutional liberty. But in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved. It is therefore to be regretted that this high tribunal, the final expositor of the fundamental law of the land, has reached the conclusion that it is competent for a State to regulate the enjoyment by citizens of their civil rights solely upon the basis of race.


In my opinion, the judgment this day rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott Case.

Snip

The sure guarantee of the peace and security of each race is the clear, distinct, unconditional recognition by our governments, National and State, of every right that inheres in civil freedom, and of the equality before the law of all citizens of the United States, without regard to race. State enactments regulating the enjoyment of civil rights upon the basis of race, and cunningly devised to defeat legitimate results of the [p561] war under the pretence of recognizing equality of rights, can have no other result than to render permanent peace impossible and to keep alive a conflict of races the continuance of which must do harm to all concerned.

snip

The arbitrary separation of citizens on the basis of race while they are on a public highway is a badge of servitude wholly inconsistent with the civil freedom and the equality before the law established by the Constitution. It cannot be justified upon any legal grounds.


Analysis

The Court did not actually rule on “Separate but Equal” that was the language of the state law. In the Civil Rights Cases (1883), the court limited the 14th Amendment to judicial review of state legislation but Congress could not directly legislate on individuals. With this limitation in mind the court held that it must accept any reasonable state legislation. The court found that “Separate but Equal” was a reasonable act. Actually the decision allowed states to adopt any "reasonable" policy it wanted from integration to separate but equal.  The court offhandedly dismissed any claim that segration created badge of servitude.

Justice Harlan, made a careful case that a railroad was public highway thus under Federal jurisdiction, and that the railroad as the operator of a public highway was performing an official function. In Strauder v. West Virginia the court had held that persons performing an official function were subject to the Fourteenth Amendment thus the case was direct Federal Jurisdiction. He understood the Fourteenth Admdnmdmet to mean that a government official could “not know the race” of a person subject to his official act. He insisted that segragation imposed real badge of servitude. Thus his Cri du Coeur  affirming Homer Plessey's claim “Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law.”  It seems he is saying any decision by race is unacceptable per se; not just ones causing segragation.

The effects of this ruling were a disaster to civil rights and race relations. “separate but equal’ became slogan with a life far beyond the the decision. It provided a means for those who wanted to restrict the rights of blacks to do so while claming to support equality. Laws were passed or amended all over the south to establish or legitimize and enforce segregation. Very seldom was separate equal, often very unequal. As Justice Harlan foretold, despite the claim of equality, it created a "badge of servitude” and de facto legal endorsement to those who claimed blacks were inferior and wanted to treat them as such. An irony is the Louisiana railroad had objected to law on the ground that it would require them to maintain extra cars with no extra revenue. If it was not for Plessy allowing legal segregation, the extra cost of maintaining duplicate, if inferior, facilities would have created a friction that would have moved toward integration. I think the rule of Jim Crow would have been shorter, less unjust and ended with less trauma. Justice Harlan’s prediction ” the judgment this day rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott Case.” is a huge understatement..


In 1954 the Supreme Court overturned Plessy v Fergusen in the landmark Brown v Board of Education case in a unanimous opinion written by Chief Justice Warren.

We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.


But about the question which stared me on this - “is the Constitution color blind?“ Prior to Brown there were arguments against Plessey, segregation was wrong, making decisions based on race was wrong, and these gave a de facto. endorsement to the claim blacks are inferior. No one really separated them out as different arguments. After Brown came the issue: can the government enforce integration by making decisions based on race or is it forbidden to know the race of a person? Both Justice Harlan's dissent and Chief Justice Warrens' opinion use all three. Chief Justice Warren seems to leave the issue of alone. Intentional segregation is unconstitutional and is to be removed with “deliberate speed“. Segregation that occurs due to demographic accident or cultural and personal choice is not discussed, and at least for initial correctives government may make decisions based on race to enforce integration.  Chief Justice Warren later actions seem to support forcing integration and I think Justice Harlan would have repeated his comment "[the Constitution] does not permit any public authority to know the race" of a citizen.

So the debate continues those who hold that the Fouteenth Amendment allows the Government to take reasonable action based on race to achieve integration or cultural diversity; though noted their meaning of “reasonable” is very deferent than Justice Brown’s And those who would say with Justice Harlan the Fourteenth Amendment says what it means and means what it says - the government, Federal and state, in action and regulation should  not know the race of a citizen - that 'the Constitution is color blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, '.


I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Martin Luther King, August 28, 1963.

    **********************************

U.S. Constitution

Amendment 13 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Amendment 14 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.


Court cases

Plessy v Ferguson
    Syllabus
    Justice Brown for the Court
    Justice Harlan in dissent


Scott v. Sandford (Dred Scot Decision)
Slaughter House Cases
Ex Parte Virginia
Strauder v. West Virginia
Civil Rights Cases 1883

Brown v Board of Education of Topeka


Related Posts

The Speech
The Water Tastes the Same
The Stealth Justice

Update 11/05/2011:  I corrected some spelling  format and word choice errors, and added a few lines to make the discussion clearer.

Libya: A Savage Kinetic Action of Peace

Colonel Austin Bay (retired) of Strategy Page presents an operational overview of the Libyan war. While most of the commentary on the war has been on the political aspects and antidotal videos and new reports it was (still is) a military operation subject to the same dynamics of any other action. This is as good an overview as one will find short of looking through (yet to be published?) professional literature.

At the end he touches on a key point. The NATO’s policy of primarily providing air and naval support prolonged the war and increased suffering considerably, but it also means that the Libyans on the ground won the war and can claim it as their own which can help provide a common basis for reconstructing the country.



Related

Libya
Bread and Oil

A Modest Proposal.

Long thought to be deceased the Rev Jonathan Swift has posted at Pajamas Media a new Modest Proposal. This time A Modest Proposal for the Reestablishment of the Prussian State

He writes:

It is melancholy to contemplate the homeless condition of the Prussians, an ingenious people whose remarkable antics in prior ages did so much to enliven the politics of Europe. Indeed, now that world opinion has grasped the necessity of returning the descendants of the Arabs of Palestine to their ancestral residences, it must certainly be the hour for a similar service to be rendered on behalf of those belonging to the tribe of the great Frederick.

For while it has been some time since that glorious state known as Prussia graced the map of our fair continent, still the lands of the Prussians were theirs and theirs alone, until that fateful day not yet seven decades past, when the awful Poles, seeking to reestablish a country for which the world had no apparent need, rudely cast them out.

snip

. . .forced to endure life stateless, wandering amongst such diverse foreign peoples as Saxons, Westphalians, Rhinelanders, Bavarians, and, even in some cases, Americans . .

snip

. . .Does not Justice herself cry out in anguish,[?] . . .

Read the whole thing. It’s funny and makes no more of a point than the original, which having reread it for the first time in years seems relevant to several current policy debates.




HT: Duff and Nonsense
and Pajamas Media

9/11 Hustlin' Up Stragglers

A couple weeks after 9/11 I was in the hospital waiting room. The television was droning something that someone else was watching; when Robin Williams came on with one of those short commemorations to the heroes of 9/11. I glanced at the screen and saw . . .




. . . Major Rescorla was the squadron executive officer of our reserve unit.


Something of a legend, he had served in three armies, in Viet Nam a hero of the battle of Ia Drang, a Silver Star, Bronze Star with Oak leaf Cluster and “V”, Purple Heart, and too much else to count. At first glance a snake eater, but when you talked to him you realized the tough exterior hid a deep intellect and compassion.




Loud, larger than life, and full of fun, he could take the joke as well as give it out. As he was walking back to our area one day the Sergeants decided to from a “chain.” They walked past him with just enough interval that he had to return thirty some hand salutes one at a time. He was laughing out loud by the end of the chain.

As XO, he was the chief of staff, a staff that didn’t call attention to itself, but plans worked and soldiers were supported. And always, more than most any officer I ever met, he would always make the extra effort to take care of his soldiers. To the point of making a trip to Division HQ to get a privates records straightened out.

When we had Squadron runs he would finish close behind the nineteen year olds, and without missing a step turn around go to the rear, set a pace and hustle up the stragglers.

He had the stereotypical command voice of a British Regimental Sergeant Major. A little less effective when we realized his bark was worse than his bite. One summer camp the officers were put in the Hospital area for quarters. The lieutenants and captains in one wing and the Major and Colonel in the next, they wanted some quiet. However it turned out the next wing over housed the enlisted soldiers of the hospital. And inclined to spend all night partying on the lawn between the wings. Until one night about 0100 hours Major Rescorla stood on the porch in his skivvies and with that command voice put them to bed.

He was promoted and took command of another squadron and then moved to New York for his civilian job..


When the planes hit, the evacuation plan was sound and rehearsed. He took 2500 people out of the building on the sound of that voice. When informed some his people were still in the building he went back to hustle them out. Last seen going up.





. . . And as Robin went off and the TV returned to the regularly scheduled commercials I was thinking. . .

“Husslin’ up stragglers, couldn’t do any thing else!”


Richard C Rescorla, Colonel, Infantry, USAR, Retired.
Grant him Eternal Rest Lord - and let Your Eternal Light shine upon him.

Nine Eleven - Ten Years Ago

Tuesday morning ten years ago started off well. I called our office in Flint Michigan to help the manager fix what was a non-problem on his computer. As we were talking he was handed a note that a Boeing 737 had hit the World Trade Center. A few seconds later the TV’s came on with CNN and a few seconds later CNN interrupted programming for breaking news. The day got worse quickly.


Three more air planes taken , two of them hitting occupied buildings. The third crashing as the passengers try to take it back. Over 4000 dead. I never thought I would see the day when the Day Care Center would be moved out of the building because we do just enough business with the Defense Department to be military target. The news later reported a shoot down order was issued but the fighters could not take off and get in place fast enough.





Being sent home for two days as non-essential in an emergency does nothing for ones ego. I left work while two of the planes and maybe more were still in the air the radio in the car broadcasting rumors of car bombs, and went to church to pray them home. When I saw the President on TV that night I knew we would be called back the next morning. Looking at the TV I thought “That boy is going to lead us?” All thing considered he could have done much worse.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


When Flight 11 turned off it’s transponder, did not answer the radio, and turned towards New York, the air traffic controllers at New York Center assumed it was a mechanical problem and the crew was trying to get Kennedy International with the best recovery resources. They moved every thing out of the way so the there would be a clear path to New York. Doing the job right, and it was so wrong.

Clarence Thomas: The Stealth Justice

During the Justice Thomas nomination hearings one of the things I noted was Judge Thomas said his main legal interests were business regulation and constitional jurisprudence. He would rather have been appointed to a business regulation position in the first Bush administration than an agency Civil Rights Counsel. The Senate confirmed a nominee with a publicly stated interest in business regulation while barely asking him a question on the subject and slightly more on constitional  jurisprudence. Strange priorities by the committee.  I suspect that if he had been asked questions and answered the them as written in his later decisions, he might have lost some conserative support and maybe the four vote margin by which he was confirmed.  Making him the Stealth Justice, these may well be the areas he has the most influnce on the future of American Jurisprudence. 
Justice Thomas’ opening statement to Senate committee on the Anita Hill allegations. 10 minutes but worth watching.


Jeffery Toobin writing in the The New Yorker looks at the role of Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court.  Partners: Will Clarence and Virginia Thomas succeed in killing Obama’s health-care plan?  While he does not agree with Justice Thomas on many levels this is a fair and balanced survey and he intends it as a warning to other liberals.



Walter Russell Mead gives us a succinct summary (New Blue Nightmare: Clarence Thomas and the Amendment of Doom) of the lenghty article and the implications’ for the Supreme Court.

Jeffrey Toobin’s gripping, must-read profile of Clarence and Virginia Thomas in the New Yorker gives readers new insight into what Sauron must have felt: Toobin argues that the only Black man in public life that liberals could safely mock and despise may be on the point of bringing the Blue Empire down.

In fact, Toobin suggests, Clarence Thomas may be the Frodo Baggins of the right; his lonely and obscure struggle has led him to the point from which he may be able to overthrow the entire edifice of the modern progressive state.

snip

There are few articles of faith as firmly fixed in the liberal canon as the belief that Clarence Thomas is, to put it as bluntly as many liberals do, a dunce and a worm. Twenty years of married life have not erased the conventional liberal view of his character etched by Anita Hill’s testimony at his confirmation hearings. Not only does the liberal mind perceive him as a disgusting lump of ungoverned sexual impulse; he is seen as an intellectual cipher. Thomas’ silence during oral argument before the Supreme Court is taken as obvious evidence that he has nothing to say and is perhaps a bit intimidated by the verbal fireworks exchanged by the high profile lawyers and his more, ahem, ‘qualified’ colleagues.

Snip

Toobin is less interested in exploring why liberal America has been so blind for so long to the force of Clarence Thomas’ intellect than in understanding just what Thomas has achieved in his lonely trek across the wastes of Mordor. And what he finds is that Thomas has been pioneering the techniques and the ideas that could not only lead to the court rejecting all or part of President Obama’s health legislation; the ideas and strategies Thomas has developed could conceivably topple the constitutionality of the post New Deal state.

Justice Thomas’ influence is summarized in three areas.

In the case of the Second Amendment, the collapse has already come. Back in my Pundit High days, anyone who dared to suggest that the Bill of Rights gave individuals the right to bear arms would have been laughed out of the class as an ignorant yahoo. These days, that is the accepted view of the US Supreme Court and most of the legal profession.

snip

The next topic for Constitutional revisionism is the expansive reading of the commerce clause that the New Deal judges used to justify the Roosevelt administration’s ambitious economic programs.  Especially relevant to the President's Health Care (sic) initiative.

Snip

The real problem will come if Thomas can figure out how to get the Tenth Amendment back into constitutional thought in a serious way.

His method seems to be avoiding the usual give and take of the Court and to write dissents or concurrences that present a well researched and argued rational that is very different different from the Courts decision.  Some trial and appellate judges seem have found these more relevant for later cases than the Courts decision.  A stealth stratagy that could have impact for decades after he leaves the court.

I have always thought that Justice Thomas, like him or not, was vastly under rated.  I would encourage you to read the articles, not just to learn about Justice Thomas but some of the key legal issues that will come before the Supreme Court.

Updated 4 Sept 2011

Barrack H. Obama - An Old Story - Oft' Told.

For three things the earth is disquieted, and for four which it cannot bear
For a servant when he reigneth; and a fool when he is filled with meat;
For an odious woman when she is married; and an handmaid that is heir to her mistress.
Proverbs 30:21-23


Three things make earth unquiet
And four she cannot brook
The godly Agur counted them
And put them in a book –
Those Four Tremendous Curses
With which mankind is cursed;
But a Servant when He Reigneth
Old Agur entered first.

An Handmaid that is Mistress
We need not call upon.
A Fool when he is full of Meat
Will fall asleep anon.
An Odious Woman Married
May bear a babe and mend;
But a Servant when He Reigneth
Is Confusion to the end.

His feet are swift to tumult,
His hands are slow to toil,
His ears are deaf to reason,
His lips are loud in broil.
He knows no use for power
Except to show his might.
He gives no heed to judgment
Unless it prove him right.

Because he served a master
Before his Kingship came,
And hid in all disaster
Behind his master’s name,
So, when his Folly opens
The unnecessary hells,
A Servant when He Reigneth
Throws the blame on some one else.

His vows are lightly spoken,
His faith is hard to bind,
His trust is easy broken,
He fears his fellow-kind.
The nearest mob will move him
To break the pledge he gave –
Oh, a Servant when he Reigneth
Is more than ever slave!


Rudyard Kipling



The Obama Topic
Highlights’

Mr. President Make a Decision
An Audacious Hope
East Meets West - President Obama in the Middle East.

Cardinal von Galen -- "Jesus Weeps for Us"

Seventy years ago today, August 4th 1941, Clemens August von Galen, the Catholic Bishop of Munster, delivered his famous sermon against Acton T4 the Nazi euthanasia program. This was the last stage of a Eugenics program to rid Germany of persons with genetic disabilities. It set the stage for the large scale exterminations of able bodied persons because of their ethnic, notional, or religious background. The publicity forced the Nazi's to officially stop the program though it continued unofficially. Three of his priests were killed in retaliation and von Galen was only spared to prevent him from becoming a martyr.

I previously posted the main part of this sermon. Click here











But a sermon is meant to heard not read. A representation of the sermon

Jesus Weeps for Us

Starts at 4 mintes.

And continues here
and here
and here

Change a few names for context and this sermon could (and should) be delivered in many places today.

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Full Disclosure: They must only count English. I did use a French cuss word once.

Explaining Algerian rioting in France: A large number of foreign workers were imported from the former colonies, especially Algeria, to do all sorts of menial work. Paris apparently does not have pooper scooper laws, every day the Algerians were out on the street with large sweep brooms cleaning up Fido’s mess. The French treated the Algerians as lower than the merde de chien they were paid to sweep up. Paris is Burning

HT: Almost Chosen People

Freedom

Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It’s not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It’s not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the “right” to education, the “right” to health care, the “right” to food and housing. That’s not freedom, that’s dependency. Those aren’t rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.

There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences
P.J. O’Rourke Remarks at a May 6, 1993 gala dinner celebrating the opening of the Cato Institute’s new headquarters in Washington. HT: Pragmatic Euphony


Wise comments but I have a quibble.

Freedom is the right, not, to do as you damn well please, (baring things like murder and theft that hurt others ) but the right to do what is right, and to speak the truth. In practice this may not make much difference. A government that does not have ability to keep one from doing as they damn well please, does not have the ability to keep one from doing right or speaking the truth. A government that has the ability to keep one from doing as they damn well please, has the ability to one from doing right or speaking the truth

Of course sometime people are mistaken and even dishonest when claim to do right or speak the truth, but if we limit there right then we have limited everyone else’s right. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, there will be consequences, which can be heavy for the mistaken or dishonest,

Empowerment, lets one do wrong and say falsehoods without consequences.
Entitlements place one at the disposal of the entitler, one must do and say as directed to keep the entitlement right wrong or indifferent.
Dependency is slavery, not freedom.


But first and foremost - freedom means being able to do what is right. With the duty to accept the consequences for ones actions.


See also:
Storms - Stoplights - Equality
The Fourth of July